15064 research outputs found
Sort by
Computer-Enhanced Visual Learning Method to Teach Endoscopic Correction of Vesicoureteral Reflux: An Invitation to Residency Training Programs to Utilize the CEVL Method
Get PDFHerein we describe a standardized approach to teach endoscopic injection therapy to repair vesicoureteral reflux utilizing the CEVL method, an internet-accessed platform. The content was developed through collaboration of the authors′ clinical and computer expertises. This application provides personnel training, examination, and procedure skill documentation through the use of online text with narration, pictures, and video. There is also included feedback and remediation of skill performance and teaching “games.” We propose that such standardized teaching and procedure performance will ultimate in improved surgical results. The electronic nature of communication in this journal is ideal to rapidly disseminate this information and to develop a structure for collaborative research
Rethinking the Fourth Gospel: An Argument for Interpreting Its Human-Logos and His Revelatory Dialogues in Light of Egyptian <i> Poimandres </i>
No full textMy dissertation is an investigation into the literary provenance and religio-historical setting of the Fourth Gospel. My investigation positions the document as a literary artifact composed around 100 CE and stemming from the religious culture of Greco-Roman Judaism, which includes the earliest literary compositions of Christianity. The mid-20th century discovery of ancient Judean apocalyptic writings at Qumran and the following academic circulation and discussion of this literature marked a major turning-point in Johannine scholarship. Prior to this, the notable Johannine scholar C. H. Dodd emphasized the crucial relevance of Greek Platonic literature to the project of contextualizing and interpreting the Fourth Gospel. Yet the study of the recently unearthed Qumranic texts has since led many leading scholars to ignore the relevance of Platonic sources and overestimate the historical significance of the literary affinities between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gospel. Utilizing the textual findings and insights of both earlier and more recent Johannine scholarship, my dissertation re-integrates Dodd’s now widely ignored philosophical literary comparanda into its analysis, including above all the Middle-Platonizing Egyptian apocalypse Poimandres. My project engages both the Jewish literature found at Qumran, as well as the Greek Platonic literary tradition stemming from Plato. In light of this more complete set of historically relevant comparanda, I advance a novel and exegetically grounded interpretation of the religio-historical and literary significance of the Fourth Gospel, demonstrating both that and how its author has creatively braided together Jewish apocalyptic and Middle-Platonic idioms and assumptions
Code and data for: Exploring and mitigating shortcomings in single-cell differential expression analysis with a new statistical paradigm
No full textThis zip file contains the data and analysis results represented in the preprint.
The analysis folder includes the files for preprocessing, the files for analysis and the files for result demonstration.
The data folder includes the single-cell datasets, the processed data, and the intermediate results obtained by the rmarkdown files in analysis folder.
The code folder includes the R code used in the analysis files.</p
Near miss: the importance of the natural atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> concentration to human historical evolution
Get PDFWhen fossil fuel energy was discovered, the timing and intensity of the resulting climate impacts depended on what the natural CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was at that time. The natural CO2 concentration is thought to be controlled by complex, slow-acting natural feedback mechanisms, and could easily have been different than it turned out to be. If the natural concentration had been a factor of two or more lower, the climate impacts of fossil fuel CO2 release would have occurred about 50 or more years sooner, making it much more challenging for the developing human society to scientifically understand the phenomenon of anthropogenic climate change in time to prevent it
From Automation to Artificial Intelligence Sociological Perspectives on Smart Technology
No full textLiving in a broad-based technological age, we have witnessed how machines evolved from rudimentary metal into sophisticated intellectual objects in the past decades. With the increasing reliance of humans on automated technology in the workplace, there has been extensive discussion over the past two decades regarding the fear of automation replacing human labor. This fear derived from the first hand observations of skyrocketing unemployment rate, which creates a general assumption that technological advancements are steadily “chipping away” the reliance on manual labor. It appears inevitable that in the future, production and distribution will become ever more automated, with human laborers being initially marginalized and then progressively “evicted” from the operations(Munn, 2022). The purpose of this article is to provide a normative critique on how today’s artificial intelligence has been stripped of its instrumental value and has become a potential threat to further alienate labor. This article will examine the significance of AI from a sociological standpoint, diverging from an economic focus, and aims to utilize pertinent literature to thoroughly investigate the effects of intelligent technology on public psychological alienation, self-perception, social discrimination, and autonomous decision-making
Essays on Market Design in School Choice
Get PDFIn the first chapter, "Short but Sweet? List Length Limits in School Assignment Systems," I investigate the impact of application length limits in centralized school assignment systems, focusing on Chilean higher education admissions. Over the past few decades, centralized school assignment systems have become more common throughout the world, and are currently in use by hundreds of school systems. The vast majority impose a “length limit” on the number of programs an applicant can rank on their application. Beyond purely mechanical effects, applicants constrained by this limit may also strategically decide which programs to include, even if the assignment algorithm would be strategy-proof with no limit, as in the common deferred acceptance algorithm. I study the impact of length limits in the Chilean centralized higher education admissions system, which has used deferred acceptance since the 1980s. I estimate an admission probability belief model to better match survey evidence and a preference and ROL formation model incorporating truthful- and sophisticate-type applicants, ranking costs, and program field random coefficients. I then simulate the equilibrium of the system under counterfactual length limits, accounting for equilibrium changes in (subjective) admission probabilities. Keeping in mind the difficulties in estimation and simulation to match the ROL length distribution in the data, I find minor aggregate welfare impacts (-0.44% from reducing the length limit from 10 to 4) but more notable differences between truthful and sophisticate applicants (-4.1% and +1.2%, respectively). This suggests policymakers may not be concerned by the aggregate losses, but an aim to “level the playing field” may still give reason to loosen the length limit. In the second chapter, "First or Nothing? Match Rank Effects in School Assignment Systems," I analyze how applicants respond to being matched to lower-ranked preferences rather than their top choice. I examine the impact of applicants not being matched to their first-ranked university program on enrollment, persistence, graduation, and reapplication using a regression discontinuity design. While such matches significantly decrease the applicant’s likelihood of enrolling in their matched program (-44pp), they do not strongly affect the applicant’s likelihood of enrolling in university in general. This has implications for the impact of length limit changes on universities and offers a potential explanation for the persistence of these limits despite their apparent negative impact on applicants.</p
Never-Realized Capital Gains
No full textAppreciated assets are subject to capital gains tax when sold by their original owner. Yet under policies of "stepped-up basis at inheritance," many countries forgive this latent tax obligation if the asset is instead transferred, unsold, to the owner's heir. In the first part of this paper, we create novel data on capital gains in Norway and show that large fractions of top household wealth are in the form of capital gains with latent (i.e., unrealized) capital gains tax liability. Furthermore, much of this capital gain is never taxed: Norway's stepped-up basis policy exempted around $300 million of capital gains in stock and real estate from taxation each year (an amount equal to 19-25% of yearly taxable gains in stock and real estate). In the second part of the paper, we study investor responses to a reform that moved Norway from a system of stepped-up basis to a system in which heirs inherit their predecessor's latent capital gains tax obligation when they inherit appreciated assets. Using a difference-in-difference empirical strategy exploiting cross-sectional variation in investors' unrealized capital gains prior to the reform, we estimate that the removal of step-up precipitated large increases in taxable realizations among highly appreciated investors. The removal of step-up also affected the composition of inheritance: inherited assets had a lower ratio of capital gain to value following the reform. Overall, we conclude that stepped-up basis has a large effect on investors' decision to sell appreciated assets and disproportionately benefits the very wealthy
An Essay on the Economics of National Security
Get PDFThis dissertation contains an essay on the optimal design of national security policy. The essay develops a theory of the national security externality. When countries bargain in the shadow of conflict, there is a strategic value to resilience to conflict because it improves bargaining power. Resilience depends on economic decisions, such as investment and trade patterns. There is a national security externality because bargaining power is not priced. The objective of economic statecraft is to intervene in the decisions that produce resilience to reduce the cost of the national security externality. Policies studied in this paper include investment subsidies to the defense industrial base, the reshoring and friend-shoring of production capacity, and various ways to weaponize trade, including sanctions. A quantitative exercise examines the value of reshoring productive capacity in a scenario where the United States faces a potential conflict with China over Taiwan. It suggests that industrial policy should target a narrow set of industries. The rise of China and the corresponding expansion of trade increased the importance of the national security externality and hence the value of reshoring by more than fivefold between 1997 and 2017
Exploring the Genetic Epidemiology of Breast Cancer and the Molecular Epidemiology of Arsenic Toxicity
Get PDFDespite improvements in medical treatments, the global burden of cancer has steadily increased over time. Breast cancer remains the most frequently diagnosed malignancy in women worldwide. Disparities in the incidence and mortality of breast cancer tend to be pronounced among women of African ancestry, driven in part by a higher prevalence of aggressive subtypes and a general lack of effective screening tools. To improve the assessment of cancer risk in diverse populations, as well as our understanding of the underlying etiology of these diseases, it is paramount to study both genetic and environmental factors that contribute to the development of cancer. This dissertation examines two distinct but complementary research foci: the genetic epidemiology of breast cancer and the molecular epidemiology of environmental carcinogen exposure. In Chapter 1, we characterize the genetic architecture of breast cancer by conducting a cross-ancestry genome-wide association study of intrinsic subtypes, along with a cell type-aware transcriptome-wide association study, to identify susceptibility loci and genes for each subtype. Following this, in Chapter 2, we develop and validate polygenic risk score (PRS) models for several breast cancer phenotypes including overall, estrogen receptor-positive, estrogen receptor-negative, and triple-negative breast cancer among African-ancestry women, leveraging information across ancestries, subtypes, and PRS methodologies to improve predictive performance. Chapter 3 then shifts to assessing the molecular epidemiology of arsenic (As) exposure, a well-established carcinogen affecting millions of individuals worldwide. Utilizing DNA methylation (DNAm) data from Bangladeshi adults who are chronically exposed to a wide range of As levels, we identify CpG sites associated with As exposure and then apply Mendelian Randomization to demonstrate that genetically predicted As metabolism efficiency causally impacts DNAm at these sites. We then develop a DNAm-based biomarker of As exposure that robustly predicts exposures across multiple diverse populations. This biomarker also accurately predicts As-associated toxicities including arsenical skin lesions with high sensitivity and specificity, and associates with overall mortality even in an external population in the United States with lower levels of As exposure. Together, these three chapters demonstrate that leveraging both genetic and epigenetic data can improve our ability to characterize disease risk and improve risk-stratification at the population-level